Mind Talk on a Moonless Night
by Yummy
Summary: Devi's been free from figments for a while...but then the mind talk starts. Johnny's in here, too. Yay!
1. Mind Talk

A/N: Hey...I've been out of commission for a while, so if my writing's a little rusty, I apologize. None of the characters are mine, sadly. They're good ol' Vasquez's. But, hey, I did have a really good granola bar earlier so I think that makes everything okay.  
  
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Nighttime was simultaneously the most beautiful and dreadful of times to be alone.  
  
Devi decided this as she walked hurriedly down the nearly barren streets, the pavement slick with fresh rain showers. Distant lights and passing cars made the world glitter beneath an empty sky and she could almost call this place home; if it weren't for the horrid gut-wrenching feeling she got every time she passed by a dark alleyway.  
  
Everything about this city at night made her feel like a bipolar freak because she couldn't decide whether to run like a little child to her apartment or to stay in the shadows and absorb the moonlight on her skin, to breathe the misty air and walk carefree. Deep sighs with a passing car and then silence again. She hadn't felt freedoms such as the ones that teased her thoughts since the night HE went all psycho on her and now she was worthy of a psychiatrics ward panic list. She glowered as she thought about him and how stupid she felt about the whole situation now. If she hadn't been so damn willing to be around an intelligent, little scrawny guy that she thought was odd and kind of awkward, but nonetheless cute, she wouldn't be so ubiquitous to her shitty little apartment, holed up like a test lab rat waiting for the day to be picked off in silence. Her thoughts were sliced with reality's razor edges as she came to the edge of another dark alleyway, but there was something different about this one. She hesitated, unable to move. Her body was stagnant in the thick air and she could swear she felt a dozen numbing hands pushing her back. A rustling of trash and dirty leaves rustled down the street a couple feet away from her, making her jump slightly. Instinctively her right hand flew to her hip pocket where she kept a can of mace. Using the small, little metal flask as a safety lock, she found the strength to push away the hands and take a shaky step forward. She forced herself to keep walking till she was away from the alley. Once her goal was accomplished, her green eyes lit up when she could see her apartment building not too far up ahead.  
  
''Almost home,'' She whispered to herself. Before another step could be taken toward solitude and empty contentedness, a voice interrupted her chain of thoughts. No, not a voice. More like a raspy whisper that caressed her body and made her mind feel as if it had just been raped. She shuddered, forcibly trying to remove the sound from her memory. But it was planted, rooted, growing and spreading. She wretched as she turned.  
  
''Johnny...''  
  
A weak smile stretched across his face, making his frail pathetic features stand out harshly under the artificial streetlight that killed the stars. Killed... Suddenly, Devi could not remember that there was a bottle of highly potent mace in her hand, at easy access. All she could concentrate on was this emaciated psycho before her as he stared straight through her green eyes. But where she would've once looked back during one of their many intimate conversations and seen a vibrant, lively response, she saw nothing. Life was replaced with an empty, hollow space filled with fatigue and despair. He looked distraught. No relief could be seen on any of his features. His skin pulled tight across his facial bone structure, making him seem even more like a ghost in that late hour. His brow furrowed and hinted at tears that were forgotten but ever present, and his eyes...oh God, his eyes. She forced herself to focus on something else about him.  
  
''Devi...all I ever wanted was you...why can't you just understand that?'' His voice cracked and he stepped forward, reaching towards her. As he did so, she could see his arms were coated in thick, clotting blood and it took her only a moment to realize it was his. His arms were slashed in a crazed manner and the wounds looked tumultuous, she could almost hear the blood as it poured from him and collected in small reservoirs on the pavement. She outwardly gasped, afraid of what he might do next--to either of them.  
  
''Johnny...'' She twitched and took a step backwards, suddenly remembering the mace and holding onto it even tighter now. He took another step forward, ever reaching.  
  
He took in a long, dragging breath, his small, bony chest heaving and whispered, ''If I can't have you, no one can.''  
  
Devi panicked. Her eyes quickly darted from side to side and she only almost barely managed to side step as Johnny lunged at her with a rather fierce looking machete. For a dying little shit, he was pretty fast. She wasted no time in seeing how long he would take to recover from her hasty move and took off sprinting. But for every little bit of speed and agility the adrenaline pumping through Devi's bloodstream brought her, Johnny's dying body harvested ten times as much force and swiftness, so it took him almost no time to catch up and wrap his arms tightly around her waist, bringing them crashing down to the ground in a heap of limbs and frenzied violence. Devi clawed, screamed, kicked, bit, tasted his blood...She was horrified. What should she do? What could she do? There was nothing...no one...how could the streets be THIS empty? It wasn't that late... He pinned her down and held the machete high above his head, ready to plunge it into her writhing body. He was cold to the touch, but his blood was covering her in the warmest and repulsive of blankets, and every new raindrop that hit her face from the cloudy sky, she would mistake for one of Johnny's tears. With his last bit of strength, he kissed her goodbye. Then he slashed her throat to pieces and lay down next to her to die.  
  
Devi shot straight up in her bed, the sheets a tangled mess around her shaking body. Her forehead was smeared with sweat and her eyes were brimmed with tears. She couldn't control her heartbeat and if she didn't slow her breathing soon, she would pass out and then find another untimely end in another dream with him. She stood from her bed shakily and surveyed her room as she held her throat in a protective manner, warding off any other nightmare figures wielding sharp objects. Everything looked normal as far as she could tell; canvases with half-finished paintings of mundane things (most of which were shit in her opinion since she felt she lacked talent lately), a couple pieces of worn clothing here and there, and several journals lay strewn about her bedroom floor. She had never kept a journal or diary of any form or fashion because resorting to such measures to capture her thoughts and feelings felt a little junior high. Besides, why would she want to capture and preserve her thoughts when they were the same thoughts and feelings that drove her insane. She only wanted them out, so that is what she would do. Scribble down her thoughts, then burn them. It had helped for a while and she had felt some sort of sick satisfaction every time she burned a new sheet, but lately she felt numb. A feeling of empty gnawing began to grow inside her now every time she watched the internal ramblings decay with the heat, and she would have to force herself to flush the ashes and forget about it.  
  
Devi, what the fuck has been your problem lately?  
  
She shrugged as a reply to the only thought that resounded through her head at this late hour and decided that nothing could be done. Sleep was inescapable and dreams were inevitable, so she lay back down on her bed and shut her eyes. This time, however, she prayed that there would only be blackness.  
  
Grant me numbness in my sleep...  
  
Sleep was out of the question. Every can of Skettios in his dark little house had been consumed, Noodle Boy had run its course through his mind, and the sound of screaming victims wore him to a frazzled wire that would snap at any second. At any length, Johnny C. needed an escape. He bade a short farewell to any being he thought might be listening, then donned his long black trench coat and stole away into the night. He didn't know where he was going, which was fine. He was trying to keep his thoughts empty. He saw no moon in the sky and no people really out on the streets, which he guessed was probably normal for this time of night. But who was he to judge normal? Silence was finally broken about fifteen minutes later when his feet had abruptly stopped moving and he found himself standing outside a towering apartment building that looked dingy and worn-out. He found no immediate recollection of it in his memory, but for some reason, somewhere far back in his mind...he was drawn here. He found the fire escape and proceeded to climb until he heard a tiny voice in the back of his head softly telling him to stop. He hadn't heard a voice like that before; gentle and lulling, almost purring. It was peaceful, a far more welcomed voice than those fucking Doughboys or the Reverend MEAT, for that matter. He obeyed and sat down against the metal railings of the fire escape and peered curiously into an apartment window that led into a dark bedroom. From what he could see, there were some canvases on the floor with half-finished paintings, some pants, a couple pairs of socks, a bowl of half-eaten ramen noodles...and a figure lying in a bed. Something about this being made his throat immediately tighten and he found it difficult to breathe. He unconsciously leaned forward and pressed his face to the glass, straining to see inside. That serene, pale face...so beautiful. If he didn't know any better, he would say that was... She moved. He gasped and jumped back, tripping and landing hard against the metal grating. For some reason, he had no better reaction other than to quickly jump up and run like hell away from there. He ran all the way back home and when he was back inside, he decided he should've never left.  
  
Am I dreaming? Did I just imagine that?  
  
Devi rubbed her eyes again and stared out her bedroom window. Mere seconds away from sleep, she had opened her eyes and she swore she saw what looked like someone looking in at her. Not just someone, him. Deciding sleep was now out of the question, she stood up and wrapped up in a robe and then trudged slowly into her kitchen to get a glass of water.  
  
Somewhere in the coldest, darkest regions of anti-being, a creature stirred. She yawned quietly and stretched, darkness welcoming her and consuming her like a flame. A flame... She had heard every bit of emotion Devi had been burning up in that metaphorical flame. She would've smiled at the knowledge and power she held, but she decided it was not a time to get too cocky. She was not ready to attack back...not yet, at least. She still needed to find a host to house her inside their torrid little minds. Until then, however...she would wait and listen. Listen from dawn to dusk and sleep only when the thoughts died down. She dare not miss a second of the mind talk, though. The mind talk was essential to her revenge, and if she were going to do it right, she would have to be a very attentive little figment. 


	2. Sickness

Morning broke like bad news on the horizon as Devi watched cop cars shrill through the busy streets and the morning bustle began. From her apartment window, everyone below her looked so miniscule and unimportant, but each so self-justified in their romps that they didn't think to merit apologies to people they ran into and knocked down on their way to ''work'' or whatever it was.  
  
She had been up since some ungodly hour and was unaware of the fact that she had been sitting in the same chair, staring out the same window ever since. She couldn't recall blinking, not even once, in that span of time. She decided to do so now to break the trance and try and gain some motivation from such a trivial action. She stood and stretched and decided to try and paint. Maybe painting would help clear her thoughts...  
  
However, halfway to the bedroom, something in her mind was slowly changing. The gears reversed and something clicked and suddenly, like a rabid beast or a hopelessly dependent drug addict, Devi stopped dead in her tracks. There it was again: the noises. She thought she had had them under control. Apparently, she thought wrong. Slow, methodical yet maddening rhythms of sounds were gaining volume and control in her mind. If she listened, the noises would taper off like a sink faucet leaking, but would always be in the back of her mind. If she tuned out, though, she could hear them: piercing and demanding, an orchestrated jumble of voices and chaos, challenging and hushing, rising and falling and coming together for a climactic buzz so nauseating, Devi had to run to her room and grab a journal page. Insanely, she began scribbling down whatever she could hear. Whatever bits of information would float to her fingertips before retreating like a child playing hide-and-seek. She would in vain seek it, to dig it out and burn the bastard before it could infect, but it was too late. She had only been able to get a couple sentences down, and then it had stopped, just as quickly as it began. Sighing dejectedly, she set the paper on fire and watched it burn, trying to imagine that each little thought held a body and each of those bodies were now convulsing in agony and dissolving quickly into nothing as they were devoured by the flames. Imagination brought no relief as the ashes stared back at her. She scattered them about her room, annoyed that this cycle would not end. She wasn't crazy, this wasn't supposed to happen to her. Maybe she should go out.  
  
.....Okay, she WAS crazy. But she called Tenna anyway, and halfway rejoiced in the familiar grating squeaking as they shared an early morning coffee together.  
  
''Sooo...Spooky and I have missed you lately, Devikins, what has been holding you back from calling us sooner?''  
  
Devi visibly cringed at the new nickname Tenna had for her, but she forced a meek smile and barely whispered, ''It's the noises again, Tenna. They're back. I can't control them this time...I really thought I could in the beginning, and I almost did! I had them under control. I could force them back into silence, but now it's like a Pandora's Box of shit has been opened in my brain and all I hear now is this...this...nothingness of insanity that scatters through out my mind and contaminates my day.''  
  
Tenna listened intently, giving Spooky a sympathetic squeak, then cocked her head slightly to one side, then said in a surprisingly motherly voice, ''Look, Devi, we're not always going to be in control of everything. Maybe this is your vice in life, a starving—but brilliant—artist consumed by voices.''  
  
Speechless. Devi was absolutely speechless. For a mere second, she could've mistaken Tenna for a therapist of some sort, but even that very insightful bit of advice was enough to haunt her for the remainder of her week: she was always going to be stalked by these beings in her mind? Fuck...  
  
Tenna's moment of startling clarity faded as quickly as it had appeared as she looked at her watch and then stood up quickly in the restaurant booth. ''Great scoooooots, Spooky!!'' She exclaimed, holding the little squeak toy high above her head and staring into its dull painted eyes dramatically. ''We're late for our meeting at the crazy old people home!''  
  
''Old people home?'' Devi cocked an eyebrow and questioned Tenna's sanity for the umpteenth time in their friendship. But questioning someone else's sanity right now would be pretty hypocritical. She felt like with every passing grain of time, more and more of her was slipping through the cracks of meaningfulness.  
  
''Yes,'' Tenna replied as she pulled on her jacket and stood, squeaking Spooky lovingly. ''We're gonna go visit my crazy old momma and watch her dance on the cafeteria tables! We love her, don't we, Spooky? TANGO, BABY, TANGO!!'' And with a nod of a goodbye and couple shimmies, Tenna was gone from the diner.  
  
Devi sighed and settled back against the greasy diner booth, alone with her thoughts and a couple older looking patrons scattered about the dilapidated eatery. She ran her hand slowly around the edge of a tan coffee cup sitting on the table a couple inches from her and sighed deeply, staring perplexed into the abyss of the black coffee. Everything Tenna had said made so much sense, but yet, Devi felt she couldn't grasp it. She hadn't been able to grasp anything lately, or control any part of herself. The only thing she could seem to control was what she would wear or eat.  
  
-I'm spiraling out of control, I keep falling through this labyrinth of rickety old voices that I can't remember and yet seem to know, there's no resolve, no relief...I am a garbage can. Yes, a garbage can for the world. I am housing other people's ignored thoughts. That has to be it: I'm not crazy, I'm psychic. There ya go, Devi. Don't worry, you're not losing it.-  
  
Feeling very little comfort from this new excuse in a series of many she had been conceiving since the interruptions had began, she pushed the coffee cup away, feeling even less control over the situation. Sighing even deeper, she looked up at the passing waitress and muttered, ''Check please.''  
  
Johnny awoke with a startle. He didn't remember falling asleep. Yet, here he was passed out on the living room floor, staring at a pool of vomit surrounding him. Hmm...he didn't remember that either. He sat up and was greeted with a pounding headache that roughly shoved him back down against the dusty wooden floor, his eyes shut tightly, trying to ward off the pain. After a moment of what sounded like an ambulance siren screaming its emergencies through his mind, the pain suddenly seized. Johnny slowly opened his eyes and his vision gradually cleared, and again his eyes met with his lonely living room. When he found the strength and composure to force his body to sit up, he tried to piece together the events of the night before. He remembered the Skettios, the stroll that led him to spying on Devi, his run home...then nothing. There was nothing—wait, yes, there was something. As Johnny stood and balanced himself against the couch, he could remember, very vaguely, like a hint of a dream, a conversation he had with someone. Or was it just himself he had been talking to? And...was it even real or had it in fact been a dream? He decided the latter had to be untrue because he slept rarely and dreamed never...at least, not since after the memory wipe; the big block of time in his memory that separated the present from his past. As he settled back down onto the arm of the couch, he could barely hear a little girl (or what sounded like a little girl) giggling in the back of his mind.  
  
''For fuck's sake, not another one...'' He buried his face in his hands and tried to negotiate with it internally, trying to force it out. The giggling died down, however, and there were no human phrases that could bargain with whatever being it was. Johnny shuddered as he remembered the doughboys and their influence, how would he be able to deal with another one? Especially when that Reverend MEAT guy was somewhere lurking in his home...  
  
Johnny suddenly remembered the voice from the night before, the one that had told him to stop at Devi's window. It had been a peaceable and gentle voice, something like a mother's voice. Or at least he figured it was like a mother's voice, because he couldn't remember his. The giggling did sound somewhat like the figment from the night before...  
  
Johnny stood up and stretched, a dim expression of boredom running along his features.  
  
''Whatever you are,'' He whispered to himself. ''Just don't fook with me, things are going great. G-R-E-A-T! Just like frosted flakies...speaking of which, those sound nummy to the tummy right about now.'' Whirling around to get his coat from the ground, he checked the pockets to make sure he had enough money. While investigating, he found a rather large knife and smiled, forgetting it had been there.  
  
''Maybe on the way home we can find a friend!'' Johnny mused to the knife, then cuddled it closely. ''YAY!''  
  
He slipped the knife discreetly into a hidden chest pocket, and then took off; ignoring—or perhaps not noticing—the dull cackling growing in the back of his mind where a new patch of weeds had been planted: a new Sickness that was about to break open hell into two people's lives.  
  
A/N: hey-lo! That was chapter two of Mind Talk on a Moonless Night. You already know I don't own the characters, so no law suits for meeee! Quick history on this story: I wrote up a story somewhat like this a year or so ago called ''Follow Me Home'' (which I may someday revise and put up) that basically followed the same storyline. It started with Devi's bad dream and...well, I can't say right now. WHEE!! You probably have figured out that little voice that's running amuck in the thought dimension is Sickness. If you did, good job, two points! If not...hey, that's ok...I probably wouldn't have figured it out either. Anyhoo, sorry if things seem really slow right now, things will start picking up soon. Reviews are appreciated n_n flames are used to pop some good popcorn. Mmm... So, until next time: I'm Rick James!! -Yummy 


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